AN UNDERGROUND filmmaker and author, Kenneth Anger was active on the American experimental scene for over 70 years. He was an openly gay artist who spliced elements of the homoerotic and the occult in his long series of short, yet attention-grabbing, movies.
California-born and based, Anger was particularly drawn to the philosophies of the English occultist Aleister Crowley. He drew on surreal techniques to combine transgressive sexuality and often unsettling imagery inspired by the dark arts. He also wrote scandalous accounts of the film world in his Hollywood Babylon chronicles.
In this sensational two-parter, in which both Beat legends and Anglo-American rock stars enjoy walk-on parts, ANTONIO PINEDA, a friend of Anger himself, is once more our reliable witness.
He recalls the pervasive influence of this subversive filmmaker, who lived to 96 and only died in 2023, and the multiple artistic tributaries that flowed from the mind of a figure of high controversy, causing delight and horror, surprise and shock, in almost equal measure…
PART I: ‘Rock revels, moving pictures, high drama and a Rite of Spring’
By Antonio Pineda
Reggie Williams discovered an abandoned film theater in Haight Ashbury. The Haight Theater was acquired by Reg’s colleague Bill Resner from the real estate agent free of charge for the first three months as it was in dire need of reparations.
Reg, Bill and his brother Hillel invited Albert Nieman and myself to a meeting. They were going to book the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and all the San Francisco musical talents to headline. Luther Greene was to empower us to create a movie scene in the tradition of the French nouvelle vague.
Inspired by the French film critics from the journal Les Cahiers du Cinema, many of whom evolved into avant garde film directors, our club was the Straight Ashbury Viewing Society, modeled on the Cine-Club du Quartier Latin.
The cine club was to screen experimental film by underground directors like Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage, Beat cinema like Pull My Daisy, Ron Rice pictures such as The Flower Thief and Chumlum, and, of course, work by the grandmaster of underground cinema himself Kenneth Anger.
Fireworks, shot in Anger’s parents Beverly Hills residence in 1947 while they were away, established him as the enfant terrible of subterranean movie-making. Sadomasochistic and homoerotic in scope, it is acknowledged to be the first openly gay film in American cinema.
Pictured above: Groundbreaking and controversial filmmaker Kenneth Anger
This short piece would catapult Anger as a rising superstar in Europe, where he came to the attention of Surrealist grandmaster, poet and film director Jean Cocteau. In 1949, Cocteau awarded the Grande Prix des Film Maudites to Fireworks at the Biarritz Film Festival.
A disciple of Aleister Crowley, Anger draws upon the English occulist’s religion of Thelema – a set of magical, mystical and spiritual beliefs based on his writings – and ideas linked to the theater of death, rebirth, resurrection evident in Crowley’s volume Liber Pyramidos, a ritual for self initiation.
James Douglas Wilson, a Straight Theater co-founder, and I sauntered next door to the I and Thou coffee shop. A quintessential Haight Ashbury hangout, we exchanged pleasantries with Peter Coyote and his partner, the smashing Samantha. Peter, who was acting with the Mime Troupe, would continue to the Magic Theater before becoming a Hollywood star. He is still a political activist and the author of a fine memoir Sleeping Where I Fall.
Pictured above: Influential English occultist Aleister Crowley
Wilson had been cast in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Straight Theater. James, his lovely wife Betty and I shared an apartment on 37 Carl Street. Our downstairs neighbor was filmmaker Bruce Conner. Michael McClure, Beat poet and Kansas cowboy, lived around the corner on Downey Street. McClure and Bruce shared a mutual Kansas background.
We espied David LaFlamme at a table and joined him. LaFlamme was a dashing, handsome classical violinist who had gigged with the Salt Lake City Symphony. He enthralled us with his new project, a baroque rock orchestra. He was casting about for players. He had composed a casting call for his project. He strolled to the cafe bulletin board and pinned it. These were David’s salad days but he would go on to fame as the hip blond frontman for the best-selling band It’s a Beautiful Day.
Bobby Beausoleil entered the cafe, sporting jeans, a black leather vest, a black top hat, long brown hair and an engaging smile. I had met Bobby near Beat poet Michael McClure’s pad on Downey Street. He was walking his dog Snowfox. He had actually acquired the sobriquet Bobby Snowfox and revealed he had recently returned from Los Angeles, where he had auditioned for a popular acid rock band the Iron Butterfly.
Emerging out of the Los Angeles music scene, Bobby had featured in the Grass Roots, an early incarnation fronted by Arthur Lee who would achieve stardom with the band Love. This incarnation was not to be confused with the hit machine of the sama name and still touring today. Lee had conferred on Bobby the nickname Bummer Bob for a drugs deal gone wrong. Little did we know Bobby would soon insinuate himself into the intoxicating world of Kenneth Anger.
Bobby wandered up to the bulletin board, and subsequently posted a replica casting call to LaFlamme’s own concept. A Mexican standoff ensued. Eventually Bobby and David essentially joined forces and thus was born the Orkustra. It was the most eclectic and musically diverse band of the whole San Francisco Sound.
Pictured above: David LaFlamme, leader of the band It’s a Beautiful Day
Anger was introduced to us at a meeting at the Straight Theater. He was a dashing old school bohemian, impeccably groomed and turned out in an elegant suit and dress shirt with tie. He affected movie star black hair, but his professional bonhomie and personality were tinged with a hint of danger.
He was, further, the celebrated author of the Hollywood Babylon books, which exposed the innermost secrets and sexual peccadilloes of the stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. As such he was a brilliant raconteur, even tho some of the amazing tales in his books were patently untrue.
Anger ensconced himself in an old Victorian house known as, the Russian Embassy, and was hanging out with Bobby Beausoleil. Kenneth had previously invited me to visit this boho landmark, gifted me with a beautiful dress shirt, and I hung out with Bobby as he rehearsed and improvised on his new instrument, a bouzouki. To our amazement, Anger agreed to screen Magick Lantern Cycle with a Q&A at our cine club.
Anger engaged my colleague Albert Nieman and I in deep conversation. He explained that he was a member of an occult secret society and magical organization: Ordo Templi Orientis. Modeled after Freemasonry and the Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, philosopher, worshipper of solar phallic religion and ritual magician, had certainly influenced it by the so-called Law of Thelema.
Pictured above: Flyer for Anger’s movie Magick Lantern Cycle
Under Anger’s curation Ordo Templi Orientis explored the hermetic sciences in cinema and the principles of sex magick. Initiates and adepts utilized sex magick as an affirmation of the erotic, frowned upon by conservative politics of the day. Thelema was celebrated by Anger as a religious philosophy, underpinned by the complex and multifaceted mysticism of Crowley.
Anger and Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan and modern Satanism, were friends and colleagues. Our mutual friend Cornel Hillmann reflects: ‘I collaborated with Anton on a music project, Hymn of the Satanic Empire, at the Black House. Anger stayed at the Black House in the 1990s.’ He adds: ‘The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Witch, and The Satanic Rituals, authored by LaVey, are still in print and selling well.‘
A prequel to the film screening was proposed by Anger. The Vernal Equinox was nigh upon us, so Kenneth cast us to assist him in a mystery play of ceremonial magick to celebrate Les Sacre du Printemps, the Rite of Spring, a theatrical ceremony of pagan San Francisco.
So it came to pass that Anger would perform a ritual to celebrate the Vernal Equinox. Albert Nieman and I had dropped acid in order to achieve the maximum experience. Kenneth had issued instructions on how to comport ourselves in accordance with the mystery drama.
The doors to the Straight Theater were opened to the Haight Ashbury crowd that streamed in on that sunny afternoon. Bobby Beausoleil improvised on his amplified bazouki on stage, creating an exotic futuristic din.
Pictured above: Bobby Beausoleil, musician drawn into Anger’s orbit
A be-robed Anger, fortified by an Owsley dose of magick, prepared to initiate the young hipsters in the audience into the mysteries of Ordo Templi Orientis. The winds tossed the seas back and forth, as the sun set over the craggy rocks and sand.
Before an altar of his own device, Anger performed magick theater. He became an uncaged magus, a mystic lion as he prowled the stage. I followed his instructions and ensconced myself in the balcony overlooking the mise en scene. The eerie soundtrack by Beausoleil delineated the boundaries between life and death. Anger seemed to float in sunshine and in shadow.
The magician, dark eyes dilated, black hair bristling, was in the process of transmigration of soul. The sorcerer became Merlin. Power emanating from his solar plexus, he invoked the spirit of the Grecian god Pan. Anger raised his arms and issued the incantation, his voice rang like a cathedral bell…
‘Io Pan
Io Pan
Io Pan, Pan, Pan.’
He pointed a finger at me in the balcony overlooking the stage and proclaimed: ‘Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law. Love is the Law.’ In response to my cue I threw my shoulders and arms back into the form of a cross and responded, ‘Love under Will.’
Anger concluded his invocation with the axiom attributed to Aleister Crowley. ‘EVERY MAN AND EVERY WOMAN IS A STAR’. He invoked the Bringer of Dawn. ‘TU VERIS MUNDI LUCIFER.‘ The audience was much taken by the experience.
Bobby was a rising star. Kenneth was ecstatic. He proposed a new adventure after the screening of Magick Lantern Cycle at our cine club. Beausoleil had since moved on from the Orkustra to create the another extraordinary band.
Next to come was The Equinox of the Gods from Virgo to Libra with a soundtrack by Bobby’s new musical vehicle the Magick Powerhouse of Oz. It would not be the last we would hear of Bobby Beausoleil.
Coming soon: PART II: ‘The Russian Embassy, Rolling Stones and Babylon brothers’